


Captain Smith and Pocahontas Had a Very Mad Affair

by cm (mumblemutter)



Category: Heroes - Fandom, Near Dark (1987)
Genre: Crossover, Heroes: Volume 5, M/M, Post-Canon, Retcon, Vampires, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-19
Updated: 2009-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-04 15:55:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mumblemutter/pseuds/cm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You're not from 'round here, are you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Captain Smith and Pocahontas Had a Very Mad Affair

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DeCarabas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeCarabas/gifts).



> Many thanks to Llwyden for her beta work. ETA: Now with perfect surprise!artwork made by davincis_girl, to be found [here](http://davincis-girl.livejournal.com/97669.html). Thank you so!

Caleb's teeth are too sharp, and he blows Peter in a way that's entirely not how Peter pictured it, all graceless bite and hunger, and Peter wants to say, "Hey man, you sure you know what you're doing," but then Caleb's tongue twists and Peter comes, so yeah, he probably does.

Caleb says, "I got full and you didn't die." He sounds curious more than anything else, sitting at the edge of the bed watching Peter, mouth wet with blood.

Peter tentatively probes at his neck, the wound long gone, parting gift that he took from the mass murderer who killed his brother, and says, "It hurt though. What the hell, dude?"

"Sorry. It's just what I am. I get hungry."

It's not an ability, Peter realizes afterwards. An infection, maybe. Caleb says there was a girl. "But she's gone now. Didn't say goodbye or nothing, but you could see it coming soon after we figured the cure wouldn't take." Peter has no idea what he's talking about, but Caleb's smile is soft and sad, and Peter decides he doesn't much care. He offers his hand instead, and Caleb draws a line straight up his arm, unerringly tracing the vein until he hits the soft spot on Peter's elbow. This time, he's expecting it and it doesn't hurt so much.

"Why won't you die," Caleb says. He props himself up, one hand on either side of Peter's head, and Peter starts to laugh because in Caleb's mind, somehow, he's the victim here. He's the news at eleven, body found naked and drained of blood in a motel room in Arizona, police have yet to identify the man and would anyone who has any information please come forward to help. "Come on," Caleb says, and this is the first time his voice deepens beyond a soft drawl, and Peter shudders and is hard, instantly.

He raises his hand and slides it up Caleb's throat, cups the back of his neck firmly enough so Caleb can feel how strong he is, how wrong he is in thinking that Peter's the one that should be afraid here. "What you are," Peter says. "I'm something else entirely." Caleb only blinks, and Peter kisses him then. Tastes blood and death and cold, and it's wrong and different unless he keeps his eyes open, unless he stares at Caleb's eyes, slipping closed, and the shadow his lashes cast on his pale cheeks. Peter pulls away, says "Hey, hey." He arches his back now, so Caleb can feel his hard-on, pressed against his thigh. "I want you to fuck me, okay? Can you do that?"

Caleb only nods his head, and his mind is a swirl of blood-red lust and confusion and the beginnings of fear, and if Peter digs deeper there's a power that's old and dead and distantly terrifying, bigger than both of them, but what Caleb is, what it made Caleb doesn't matter, not when he's biting a line down Peter's throat and chest and marveling at the way the wounds heal, almost instantly. Not when he's fucking Peter and Peter's gasping "yes" and "please" and "right there", right now.

"How old are you," Peter asks, much later, when the sun's come up and Caleb's made sure that the doors and blinds are all shuttered, and he still huddles away from them as if the light could kill. Even if it's his only weakness, it's his entire life, hiding in the dark.

"Been twenty years, maybe. We don't change none, not like normal folks," Caleb says. "The others, I was only with them for a while before they died, they were old, except maybe Mae. They didn't look it or anything, but you could tell. But Mae, she was young. Pretty like you."

"Mae, huh," and Peter would ask more questions, or object to being called any permutation of pretty, but then Caleb is crawling down his body and sinking his teeth into the sensitive flesh on the inside of his thigh, and Peter is shivering, and twisting his fingers into Caleb's hair, and not thinking of much at all. "That's the girl that left?" he says finally, when he can, when his body's done shaking, but Caleb doesn't answer.

He just lowers his head and says, "Hey, you know, you don't have to go. My pick-up's outside. We can go wherever, soon as the sun sets."

"Uh-huh," Peter replies distractedly. He could open the door. Walk out. He's been here a week, chasing down memories. Even the motel room's the same. Regrets layered upon regrets. As Ma would say, you let it all out, and then at some point you have to move on. Ma should know him better, he's never been any good at that.

In the dim glow of the motel room lamp, hair all messed up around his head, Caleb is impossibly young, save his eyes, which are everything but. Peter ghosts his thumb along Caleb's cheek, leans down to kiss him, soft and barely open-mouthed. "I'll be back," he says, against Caleb's lips. "Need food. You eat?"

Caleb shakes his head.

Outside, he passes by a car and has to stop at his reflection in the window, scrape away at flecks of blood dotting his neck like so many needlepricks. There's a diner nearby, and maybe he stinks, or there's still traces of blood on him, but no-one gives him a second look when he orders his food to go. "Thank you," he says, when he's given his bag, and the waitress offers him a tired smile.

Caleb flinches when Peter cautiously lets himself in. He's freshly showered and outlined against the bathroom door, and he leans against it when he says, "Didn't think you were gonna come back."

Peter says, "I was just hungry," and Caleb smiles.

+

They're heading East, been heading there for what seems like weeks. Peter's become nocturnal like Caleb, he sleeps during the day and they roam throughout the night. He buys a pair of dark sunglasses at a gas-station, and ignores Caleb when he tells him he looks "kinda dumb," wears them throughout the night and on the rare occasions when he's awake during the day. Usually just to catch the sunrise, when Caleb's safely inside the pick-up or the motel room they've rented.

"Sometimes you look at me, and it's like you're seeing someone else," Caleb says once. Just offhandedly. Somewhat curious, but not pressing, and the moon casts his face in shadow so he doesn't look quite real, pale and untouchable.

"There's no-one else," Peter says, and slumps against the door of the pick-up. "Keep driving."

Caleb tips an imaginary hat in his direction, gives a small, unconcerned smile. He never cares where they're going, just as long as it's somewhere, and Peter realizes that Caleb sees this day, this week, this year even, as just another second in which to pass time, inconsequential in the grand scheme of his non-life.

Peter can't imagine ever reaching that state. Every moment, right now, is a moment in which Sylar isn't dead yet.

+

Caleb has duct tape for when it's near dawn and he's not found shelter yet, but otherwise no concrete plan to survive his kryptonite. Peter doesn't understand that, but Caleb just shoots him a look and says, "It's worked for twenty years," and Peter lets it go. He considers offering to fly them out of the encroaching sun, but he can't stand the thought of flying anymore, so he doesn't.

"Guess we stock up on duct tape then," he says, and Caleb grins, wide and easy.

+

It's a public service, in a way. Peter asks him at one point, "What if I weren't here," and Caleb looks up from feeding on his arm, mouth red and wet, shrugs easily.

"Always someone around." He pauses, then furrows his brows. "I gotta live."

It should bother him, that he's fucking a man who has probably killed more people than Sylar, and it does, just not enough. Not enough that he doesn't pull over sometimes to shove Caleb back into the door of the pick-up, to bite down hard on his lip until he whimpers, to whisper filthy things into his ears and jerk against him until they're both a hot, sticky mess. Caleb always ends with sinking his teeth into Peter's neck and ripping hard, until there's nothing between them but blood, and Peter will always come this close to passing out but never quite succeed, and it will burn but it doesn't matter, it never matters.

+

Caleb tells him about the family that he had, and the family that he lost, and the girl that he once loved so dearly, and Peter commiserates, and tells him nothing at all in return. He shows Peter a faded picture, a man and child and a girl, blonde and pretty. "That's my Dad and my sister, and that's Mae. Before she turned back." Caleb says his sister's married now, got two kids down in Lawton. "They got a good enough life. I talk to her sometimes. Dad died last year. Bad heart." Peter just nods, and wonders how long it's been since Caleb had anyone to talk to.

Peter's hungry a lot. When they're not fucking or driving they're sitting in all-night diners. Peter orders half of what's available and Caleb pretends not to be disgusted at the sight of the food. Sometimes, when no-one's looking, Peter will practice his powers. Move the cutlery around, maybe push Caleb back into the seat so he can't move. Caleb doesn't seem to mind much, and Peter feels the powers curl around his belly, hot and hard and aching for release.

+

"You got to kill them, right," Caleb says, when Peter asks, curious. They have hours on the road and nothing but time to kill, and Peter likes to wedge himself against the door, feet propped on the dashboard, and listen to Caleb talk. "Else they turn after you bite them." His voice turns distant, pale. "Mae and me, for a while we thought we could have ourselves a family. A new one, replace what she lost. But then she just wanted gone, and I ain't seen her since."

"And no one since then?"

"Nah. There was one or two, but they didn't work out. It's easier to be alone, sometimes." He drums his fingers on the steering wheel, in time with the rain tapping heavily on the truck. Peter breathes in deep, catches ozone and faded leather and the barest hint of blood underneath it all. Outside, it's nothing but wet, and they might as well be the only two people left in the world.

+

He calls his mother at some point, at a truck-stop, he forgets what state. Hasn't taken note in a while. She sounds worried, which is common, and she sounds scared, which is not so common. She tells him sternly about his responsibilities, about his job and whatever's left of his friends, of people and places that need his presence. Peter says, "I love you, Ma."

She responds by telling him, sharp as a knife, "Sylar's still out there."

Peter hangs up.

Outside, Caleb is leaning against the pick-up, smoking a cigarette. He offers it to Peter, but when Peter shakes his head he just drops it and stubs it out beneath his boot.

"Call was bad, huh." Caleb smiles at Peter's shrug, leans back into the kiss that he's offered instead of an explanation. It's cold, but Caleb's hands are colder still.

"You should cut your hair," Peter says when he finally pulls away, threading his fingers through the over-long mess.

"Reckon I should?" Caleb doesn't sound convinced. "I kinda like it this length though."

"Yeah, maybe a buzz-cut, at least down the sides." Caleb softly harrumphs, but Peter's not listening, and he lets his head fall back as Caleb's fingers come up to trace the veins in his neck. His mother's not wrong. His mother's never wrong. Eventually he'll go home. Eventually. For now it's the road, and if Caleb treats him like a walking, talking plasma vending machine, well. Peter's got an endless supply of blood to give.

+

"You weren't part of the plan," he tells Caleb.

"Shouldn't have come up to me, then."

"You don't drink. What were you doing in there, anyway."

"Always someone like you, place like that. Usually they end up dead. Not much call to go looking for them."

Truth is: he'd walked in and Caleb was just sitting there, drink untouched in front of him, and Peter's heart skidded, stopped. Never quite started again.


End file.
